A full size open top double deck bus has been donated to the Swansea Bus Museum by First Cymru in honour of a member its staff, who volunteers at the museum, who retired at the end of March.
Peter Nedin (68) from St Thomas in Swansea left First Cymru on 28 March, having spent 45 years as a driver for the company. In that time he clocked up well over one million miles on the road - without ever having had an accident.
Peter, and his friends at the museum, will now restore the bus " a Bristol VRT open topper - to its former glory before putting it on display for all to see.
Its thought the presentation of a full size open top double deck bus is the first of its kind as a retirement gift. It certainly beats the standard carriage clock gift that so many people get when they leave active employment!
Peter joined the bus industry 45 years in 1969 at the tender age of 20 and over the years has remained a model employee. He passed his driving test first time round at 17, and took his PSV (Passenger Service Vehicle test) just two or three years later, before joining the United Welsh Bus Company. In all his years of service on the buses he was never involved in any form of blameworthy incident " maintaining a perfect driving record throughout. Five years ago he was given a medal by First Cymru recognising 40 years safe, incident free driving and was also given the Road Operators Safety Council (ROSCO) Award for Safe Driver of the Year.
Talking about his achievements, Justin Davies, Managing Director for First Cymru, says: "It was a sad day for us when Peter left the business. He has been a perfect employee: hes a brilliant driver and was great with all the customers. We recognise though that after 45 years of working for us, five of which have been on a part time basis, he wanted to spend more time doing the things he loves even more: restoring old buses. To help him with this we donated one of our oldest vehicles " which we had recently taken out of our fleet " to the museum in his honour. We hope he gets much fun and enjoyment restoring it back to its former glory.'
Talking about his retirement, Peter Nedin, said: "People had often joked that I should be given a bus because Id worked for the company so long, but I never actually expected it to happen. It was such a shock and a great honour to be told the old open topper would be donated to the museum in my name. Its in really good condition for its age and its nice to be able to keep this in the area, helping to celebrate its history.
"I had a fantastic career at First, and a great sending off when I left. Im now enjoying retirement and wondering how I ever really had the time to go to work. I have plenty of little jobs to do around the house and have been enjoying days out here and there, alongside my work at the museum."
The bus that was donated to the museum is a Bristol VRT/SL3/305 with an ECW O43/32F body and a Gardner 6LXB engine. Registration: MOD 571P. From April 2011 until recently it was used as the 'Beach Bus' on a service from Swansea to Limeslade/Bracelet bays. Prior to that it was used in Devon and Dorset.
For more information about First in South and West Wales log onto www.firstgroup.com/cymru.
First is also on Facebook, at www.facebook.com/FirstCymruBuses and Twitter, at www.twitter.com/FirstCymru